Mark P. Shea's Blog, page 1296

The Hellish Nightmare of our Suburban Underclass

...has never been more graphically depicted:



How do people *live* that way?

600 Followers!

Reader Steve Reeves, a drooling sycophant of mine, writes in lickspittle suckupery:

Received my order today - thank you very much! I'm glad to do what I can to help out the author of my favorite Catholic blog, and of course my Dark Lord and Master. As one of your unthinking loyal minions, I would never dare to suggest that perhaps some cost-cutting measures may be in order. For instance, is it really necessary to have Pits of Despair or could you scale back to Potholes of Mild Annoyance? And is it wise to keep your own in-house staff of Pain Technicians when an offshore Consolidated Displeasure Delivery Center in India can do the job for a fraction of the cost? In any case, I'm glad to help support you as you work toward your goals of putting a Planned Parenthood clinic on every corner, giving terrorists free reign, and getting Obama re-elected. Your strategy of trying to confuse the righteous with gobbledy-gook about "morals" and "what the Church teaches" and "common sense" is brilliant. Don't worry, your secret is safe with me!

I didn't even know Hercules read my blog! I will definitely need you in my Praetorian Guard of Beefy Goons. As to your suggestions, I find creativity on the part of Followers to be dangerous and threatening, and I will be contacting one of my crack lobotomy teams to deal with your unseemly outbusrt of independent thought.

That is all!

Hey Western Washington!

I'll be talking about the Ten Commandments tonight at St. Mark's parish hall in Shoreline at 7:00 PM. Don't miss it if you can! Here's a recent photo of me giving the Ten Commandments talk:

Mike Flynn Continues to Impress

Turns out he's the author of the immortal verse, "There's a Bimbo on the Cover of My Book" (sung to the tune of "She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain When She Comes"):

There's a bimbo on the cover of my book,
There's a bimbo on the cover of my book,
She is blonde and she is sexy,
She is nowhere in the text, She
is the bimbo on the cover of my book

There's a dragon on the cover of my book,
There's a dragon on the cover of my book,
He is big and green and scaly
He is nowhere in the tale, he
Is the dragon on the cover of my book.

There's a castle on the cover of my book,
There's a castle on the cover of my book,
It is strong and fit for battle, though
the settings in.....Seattle?
There's a castle on the cover of my book......

Dunno if there are more verses, but I do know you can find this valuable contribution to American letters here:



Also, Flynn notices something that I've noticed too: namely, that when you have the coldest winter in ages or record snowfall and express some dubiousness about climate change, you are told "Weather isn't climate". But when you have a bunch of tornado make it the worst tornado year since 1953, all of a sudden weather is climate. As he puts it:

When is Weather Really Climate?

Ans. When it is bad weather. Just as global warming has been blamed for the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan, so too it has been blamed for the recent spate of deadly tornadoes in tornado alley.

It is especially telling when the headlines report: the deadliest year for tornadoes since 1953; because what that means is that it was deadlier in 1953, before "global warming" is said to have begun. (We were well into global cooling at that time, but it would be another decade or so before people began to notice and worry.)

Everything proves climate change and anything that doesn't is just weather, not climate.

Finally, while we are on the subject of skiffy and fantasy, the inimitable John C. Wright answers the musical question: What do you read after Tolkien? He also talks about Tolkien and Beowulf and, finally, what to read when you tire of Tolkien.

Human toothache...

...loses court battle to get rid of "under God" from pledge.

By the way, it's interesting to note that famous demon-possessed atheist Muslim Communist President Obama's administration filed an argument in support of keeping the pledge the way it is. Right Wingnut panic-mongers would be at a loss to explain this if their organs of propaganda permitted them to know such things or if their tightly controlled subculture allowed them to acknowledge such things. But, as it is, this will either be overlooked entirely or explained as Obama trying to *appear* not to be demon-possessed atheist Muslim and Communist, since it is a proven fact that Obama is a demon-possessed atheist Muslim and Communist.

Those inside the Bubble dislike challenging the Recieved Narrative, no matter how incoherent it is. If it damages Obama, that's all that matters, even if it makes you sound crazy saying it.

Here's a little update...

on the Philly Abuse Case. I have not had time to follow this at all, so I couldn't tell you if this is accurate or not. But it seems to be well sourced, so if you are following this story, there you are.

Zac Alstin got himself First Thinged

He writes a fine piece called "We all Die with Dignity".

Euthanasia is the lie that killing yourself is dignified. Actually, it's a disgrace and it only a encourages the rest of the world to make war on the weak. It's an act of cowardice for those who surrender to it (though culpability may be greatly reduced, if not eliminated, by ignorance and pressure). And it's an act of murder for those who inflict it.

Lots of people in NY saying "Hey! What could it hurt?"

In case you haven't heard, legalized same-sex "marriage" is very imminent here in New York, with a vote coming soon in the State Senate if enough Senators agree to vote yes on the bill.  It is one of the top three legislative priorities of Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat who also happens to be a Catholic.  Well, this morning I nearly spit the coffee out of my mouth when I read this op-ed from the editors of the Syracuse Post-Standard and the compelling, airtight logic of their argument for "marriage equality."  Apparently, it just takes an approval average of 51 out of 100 citizens on any given day to justify passing legislation that redefines the very foundation of society.  And if on a later date, those approval averages dip below 50 out of 100, we can rest assured that marriage will once again be defined as a male-female union...but, wait, who am I kidding, right?  
As one Catholic author has repeatedly stated, "Tolerance is not Enough. You. MUST. Approve!" 

Thankfully, after reading Archbishop Dolan's reasoned rebuttal of Albany's lame attempt at social experimentation - "I come at this as a believer, who, along with other citizens of a diversity of creeds believe that God, not Albany, has settled the definition of marriage a long time ago" - balance has returned to the Force.

In a few decades they will be saying, "How were we supposed to know?"

Another Triumph for the GOP and Catholic Formation in Washington State!

Rob McKenna, our GOP candidate for Gov:

"The law made by voters says women have a choice. I believe life begins at conception, but there are two lives, the woman's and the baby's. Our state has been very clear that women should have the right to choose. I hope she chooses the child. But the point is it's her choice."

I'm thinkin' maybe I'll vote for Camille Pauley. She's not running, but she has a cute baby and she's whip smart. Way smarter than this cipher.

Great American Tweets

in which Tom Hoopes gently suggests that a culture of tweeting is not much of a culture.

Not great political speech. But anything that imposes a form tends to be taken by human beings as an artistic challenge. I can imagine a sort of haiku arising out of Twitter culture that could become a form of intense, brilliant poetry.